Obamacare

House Republicans are scheduled to vote again today to repeal the ACA, and this time they think they have the votes. Maybe by only 2-3 votes though.

But their bill has exactly zero chance of passing the Senate.

Why do they even fucking bother, I mean really. When Obama was president they voted to repeal Obamacare, what, sixty times? Don't they have any other pressing business?

Hey, do you think if the ACA was nicknamed Romneycare, do you think they'd be so gung-ho to repeal it at any cost? Is it just the fact that his name is attached that makes it necessary for them to get it out of the public discourse?

Of course I'm still convinced Big Pharma is behind the effort, because they fear any effort to control costs.

All the news channels are pointing out that what was passed was actually a HUGE tax cut for the top 1% ($30 billion) with a repeal of Obamacare tacked on to pay for it.

Well on further clarification, what the lefty news organizations are calling "a HUGE tax cut for the top 1%" is actually a canceling of the huge tax increases levied against high earners and corporations by Obamacare to pay for health care for the poor. This was the goal all along, for the House Republicans, who dance to the tune called by Wall Street and other obscenely rich individuals.

The new Senate version of the bill is basically a return to pre-Obamacare status quo, where those who can afford insurance can buy it on the open market, and those who cannot must do without. Of course this shifts the costs of uncompensated health care to the insured, causing premiums to skyrocket from all the poor people visiting the emergency rooms. If I recall correctly, this is where we came in with Obamacare?

But at least the rich donor class isn't getting dinged with any social responsibility they don't feel obligated to pay.

The American Healthcare Act (foreverafter to be known as "Trumpcare"), which will control 1/6 of the U.S. economy -- or about two-and-a-half trillion dollars -- was drafted by 13 old white men who have excellent 100% government-paid-for-life healthcare. They worked in a room with no input from women, no input from poor people, no input from those with chronic conditions, no input from veterans, no input from retired people, no input from the uninsured.

Who *DID* they get input from? They've admitted this, lobbyists from Big Pharma and Big Insurance. And the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute, which are funded by Ayn Rand-worshipping billionaires. "Let them eat cake," they proclaim, as they light their cigars with $100 bills.

Up to eight Republicans vowed not to vote for this piece of shit, so McConnell had to pull off the floor.Obamacare repeal is dead, long live Obamacare!

So far the ONLY piece of legislation the Trump White House, Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Republican-controlled Senate have managed to pass, in 150 days in office, is ONE BILL making it easier to fire employees of the Veterans Administration. (It was a bill that began life during the Obama Administration.)

Forget the "first 100 days." This president will like have next-to-nothing to show for his time in office.

Hopefully.

Unless Justice Kennedy retires

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Okay this is weird. I can't type capital t's on my keyboard anymore. If I go into caps-lock it works, but shift+t gives me nothing. All the other capitals work ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSUVWXYZ

Of course this means 40 Republican Senators were in favor of cutting $869 billion out of Medicaid to the poor, throwing 22 million Americans off insurance (15 million in 2018 alone!) and granting a massive tax cut to the extremely wealthy.McConnell wanted to get the thing passed before the July 4 holiday (which lasts until 7/10 for them) because the Congressmen are liable to get a lot of angry voter reaction while they're back in their districts.

In his continuing effort to deflect attention from his Russian collusion investigation, Trump tweeted this morning that Republicans should just repeal Obamacare now, and worry about replacing it someday down the road.

Mitch McConnell just announced that he plans to bring Trumpcare up for a final vote before senators go home to meet with our constituents—he's taken the unprecedented step of delaying the start of the August state work period until August 14 to give himself time to get the bill through.

This is it, my friends. If McConnell can't get it done by August 14, Trumpcare is likely dead. But McConnell is offering Republican senators all kinds of deals to get the last few votes he needs, and he wouldn't be delaying the start of the recess unless he thought that he had at least a decent chance to get the votes.

Over the next three weeks, every Republican senator will face enormous pressure from the GOP to get on board, so we need to put even more pressure on them to vote no.

NPR reported today that McConnell will be selling his colleagues the story that ANYTHING -- even a terrible bill -- is preferable to utter failure on "agenda item #1." Let's hope at least three senators see through that horseshit.

They can't repeal it. The "revisions" bill they are working on can be passed with fifty-one votes under budget reconciliation. A repeal of the ACA cannot be passed under BR, so they would need sixty votes. That won't happen.

Which makes me wonder -- why ARE the insurance companies raising premiums left and right? Why are they pulling out of markets all over the country? Were the economics of the original ACA that far wrong? Or are the insurance companies playing fast and loose and causing all this chaos on purpose? (And where are the fucking state insurance regulators, praytell?)

Maybe... maybe if it collapses (further) there will be a new appetite for single payer. Maybe Trump will bring us socialized medicine afterall, even if inadvertently?

Out of pocket spending grew 2.6% to $338.1 billion in 2015, or 11 percent of total NHE.

20 + 17 + 33 + 11 = 81%

NHE.com wrote:

The largest shares of total health spending were sponsored by the federal government (28.7 percent) and the households (27.7 percent). The private business share of health spending accounted for 19.9 percent of total health care spending, state and local governments accounted for 17.1 percent, and other private revenues accounted for 6.7 percent.